


Day 6: Prowl

by GemmaRose



Series: Lost Light Fest 2019 [6]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Established Relationship, Functionist Universe (Transformers), M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood, Secret Relationship, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-06
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-11-25 21:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20919140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: There's something measurablydifferentabout mechs who were Constructed Cold, something the Council used to justify their deportation millennia ago. Mesothulas wants to fix this, but first he needs to prove that his creation is functional, is stable. Prowl isn't sure why this means he has to help, but he can't say no to his scientist.





	Day 6: Prowl

“Manually?” Prowl frowned, looking from Mesothulas to the green monoformer against one wall of the lab, optics shuttered and frame only upright thanks to the pod which held <strike>it</strike> him.

“Yes.” Mesothulas nodded, hands fluttering over the operation panel for the pod without touching it. “I want him to function perfectly when I present him to the Council, and if I requisitioned first-boot datapacks they would demand to know why.”

Prowl nodded, not even needing to fully run the scenario through his TacNet to come to the same conclusion his scientist had. “But you couldn’t come by first-boot files any other way?”

“And risk them being of sub-standard quality?” Mesothulas gasped. Prowl held up his hands to forestall any further objection.

“Understood.”

“Will you help?” Mesothulas asked again, and this time Prowl nodded. The faster they had Ostaros functional, the faster he could nudge Mesothulas towards working on a project less likely to draw the wrong sort of attention. Mesothulas lit up, and Prowl flushed when his scientist leaned in to briefly nuzzle his cheek. “Thank you.” he murmured, and spun back to the pod holding Ostaros. His fingers danced over the operation panel, and the chilled air inside hissed out as the transparasteel front panel slid out of the way. Ostaros’s optics flickered online, blue as the barely-hidden spark in his chest, and something in Prowl’s chassis twisted painfully as he watched Mesothulas help the newly built mech take his first steps, processor and gyros acquainting themselves with his limbs.

Outside of the pod and its cold lighting, it was plain to see that Mesothulas had given Ostaros his own green as a primary colour, with the remainder of his plating the same dull silvery grey all unpainted armour was. His optics were blue though, and Prowl wondered if it was simply due to the available parts he had to work with or if Mesothulas had deliberately chosen to give his creation the same sort of optics as Prowl. The design of his helm as a whole was certainly closer to Prowl’s than Mesothulas’s own, and it made his spark do funny things in its casing to think Mesothulas may have wanted his creation to resemble Prowl as much as himself.

Ostaros took a wobbly step away from Mesothulas’s supporting hands, then another, and Prowl watched as each stride grew more confident, Ostaros pacing smoothly to the wall and tapping it with a chirp of binary before he turned back around and started coming back, faster this time. Prowl’s TacNet caught it before he did, and he moved without consciously acknowledging what it fed him, lurching forwards as Ostaros tripped to catch the newly constructed mech. “Walk first.” he suggested, setting Ostaros back upright on his pedes. “_Then_ run.”

Ostaros simply stared at him, nothing of substance behind those wide blue optics, and Prowl belatedly realized that the bulk of the work was going to be mental, rather than physical. Ostaros didn’t know a single glyph yet.

Mesothulas’s field brushed against his, briefly soothing before he walked right up to Ostaros and took one of the monoformer’s hands in both his own. “Are you hurt?” he asked, backing the words up with a pulse of concern from his field. Ostaros smiled and let out another little binary chirp, leaning into Mesothulas’s touch. Prowl bit back a laugh at his scientist’s look of consternation.

“We’ll have to start simpler than that.” he said, and tapped on Ostaros’s shoulder to get his attention. “Prowl.” he pointed at himself. “Ostaros.” he pointed at the new mech.

“Meso.” Mesothulas said, pressing a hand to his own chestplate. Ostaros’s optic shutters cycled a few times, then he nodded slowly and pressed a hand to his chest. “Ossssss” his face contorted, vocaliser sticking on the first glyph of his designation. Not even the actual glyph either, just one that sounded the same.

“Good!” Mesothulas cheered, clapping his hands and sending a pulse of _approval joy pride_ through his field so strong it was nearly a physical force.

“Ossss-star” Ostaros tried again, and Prowl patted him awkwardly on the shoulder as Mesothulas radiated adoration so strongly it almost hurt. “Osss-star-oes.”

“Good enough.” Prowl gave Ostaros’s shoulder a squeeze as Mesothulas pulsed _joy pride adoration_. This time, Ostaros’s field reacted with a pulse of ill-defined happiness, and Prowl couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips.

“Come, Ostaros.” Mesothulas gestured for his creation to follow him, and Prowl gave the mech a gentle push from behind. “I want to show you something _wonderful_.”

“What sort of wonderful?” Prowl asked as he guided Ostaros through the lab, grateful that the newly onlined mech seemed to only have optics for his creator. It meant Prowl didn’t have to stop him trying to touch anything.

“The educational kind!” Mesothulas chirped, field so saturated with positive emotions they were seeping over into Prowl’s field.

“You got your hands on newbuild-appropriate datapads, but you couldn’t get the programs to make them irrelevant?”

“I _made_ the content for his datapads.” Mesothulas preened, and Prowl recalled glimpsing a work in progress on one of Mesothulas’s lab screens that involved oversized glyphs and colourful pictures.

“You are truly dedicated to this project.”

“Only the best for my sparkling.” Mesothulas cooed, turning on his heel to smile at Ostaros behind his facemask. “Ostaros is my greatest creation, the first of a new breed of cybertronians. Created like you, with a Vector Sigma spark signature like me.”

Prowl’s plating rippled, and Mesothulas chuckled as he turned and continued leading Ostaros over to what was apparently no longer a storage room. Where there had once been shelves of supplies and equipment now sat a chest, a berth, and a desk with a chair just the right size for Ostaros. “Ostaros, this is your room.” Mesothulas said with a hidden smile, the crinkle of his optics matching the warmth of his field.

“Ostaros.” the mech said, and Prowl’s doorwings flicked up in surprise. That was _significantly_ better than he’d sounded out in the lab. He learnt quickly.

“Yes, that’s you.” Mesothulas walked over to the desk, and Prowl barely needed to guide Ostaros to follow and sit. For a mech who could barely say his own designation, he was surprisingly clever. Then again, he was _Mesothulas’s_ creation, intelligence was to be expected. “And these are yours.” Mesothulas reached into one of the desk drawers and pulled out a datapad with a sturdier-than-standard frame, the sort given to medbay patients adjusting to new hands or arms whose systems had yet to properly calibrate the amount of force put into any given motion. Messothulas moved Ostaros’s hand to press the power button, and the young mech’s optics widened as the screen lit up.

“This is for basic glyphs.” Mesothulas explained, letting Ostaros take the pad as he pointed at something on the screen. Ostaros tapped it, and Prowl moved behind him to look over his shoulder. Sure enough, the first, most simple glyph of neocybex was displayed in large, bold font that took up half the screen, the other half being dedicated to the appropriate picture. “Tap here to hear them.” he pressed a finger to a button at the bottom, and Prowl startled slightly as a recording of Mesothulas’s voice played from the datapad’s tinny speakers. Of course he would’ve had to do the recording himself, too.

Ostaros opened his mouth, and a reasonable approximation of the sound came out.

“At this rate he’ll be literate by the end of the deca-cycle.” Prowl remarked, and Mesothulas turned to him absolutely beaming.

“Isn’t he brilliant?”

“He is.” Prowl agreed with a nod of his helm. “Only to be expected of your creation.”

“Out creation.” Mesothulas said, moving around Ostaros to catch Prowl’s hands in his own.

“You built him.”

“But his spark isn’t a pure copy of mine.” Mesothulas grinned, sliding a hand up Prowl’s arm to rest in the middle of his chest. “It’s just as much you as it is me.”

Prowl often wished he had a facemask, but rarely did he wish for it so fervently as he did now, when Mesothulas’s field was so enraptured by whatever thing his face was doing at the moment. Mesothulas traced the glyph for Love on his armour over his spark, and Prowl bent forward to bury his face in the top of his scientists’s helm as he did the same.


End file.
